Kobre C & D — tagged to remember

October 31, 2007 at 1:49 pm · Filed under Photo, practice, reading, Tools, Uncategorized

Section C

Photo Story

Oh, the boob pictures upset me. I call the Kobre book “the Butt book” in my office, because it seems like the danged thing has someone’s naked rear end, or other part is every chapter. Not that I’m complaining. But I’m also excited to get books in the mail and opened this book in the McIntosh Post Office. I was flipping through it and page 86 fell open showing the full page image of the kid playing with the other kid’s bottom. There were little old ladies in the post office with me, and I had to slam the book shut before someone in town dubbed me a sicko for looking at nekkid kid pics in the post office.

Anyway. The breast cancer pictures chapter 8 really worked me over. The crack babies in chapter 4, along with the torture victim on page 74 were up there on my I-have-to-look-but-I-need-to-cringe-while-I-do-it list. I think the thing I like about photojournalism is its raw honesty. Even the nekkid parts. I hope we never get to a place as a society where we don’t put that out there, or put ourselves out there, because we’re so afraid of upsetting the readership.

Newspeg. This is what I feel like our soundslides are missing. It doesn’t feel like journalism to me with out a newspeg of some kind. Maybe soundslide three will feel different since there’s an issue involved.

Motel Dad. I’ve seen this online, but the images in the web package didn’t include some of the images in this photo project.

Section D

Lighting: I always wondered why they sold photographic filters. I knew that anything I took under fluorescents came out kind of green and had to be corrected in Photoshop. Although, I have to admit that I would have to have a key to carry around to figure out what filter goes with what type of light. I also never realized that normal lightbulbs are called tungsten bulbs.

Web: Do platypuses have pouches? I looked them up on Wikipedia but couldn’t tell. From the reading… if a journalist is going to fill so many roles as a platypus does, it sure would be nice to have a pouch to carry around all this crap in. It makes me a little scared to learn video.

Law: I love the graphic on page 281 of where is OK to shoot and where it is not. I need to print that out and put it on the other side of the “what filter to use” sheet. Kobre wrote, “Press passes entitle you to nothing.” Just because you’ve got the clearance to shoot it doesn’t make it legal. Having no OFFICIAL press credentials… this sentence made me feel a little better after reading the first tip for avoiding jail, which is to always carry your press creds.

Digital Darkroom: I learned Photoshop when I was still at SFCC by working the overnight shift at Target Copy. You wouldn’t think that’d be a great way to learn it, but you’d be amazed at how fast you pick up how to fix miscellaneous issues in PR campaign projects at 3 a.m. so they’ll print right. Everything else has been self-learned trial and error. I never picked apart an image to correct like the book shows in the step-by-step guide. But I’m going to give this a try, I think.

And, oh yeah, cropping — I always need to be reminded to crop aggressively.

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